- Graham breaks with brother on nuking filibuster
Source: The Hill
“Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) on Monday broke with her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), over abolishing the filibuster three weeks after stepping in to finish the rest of his term. … ]This is where I differ from my brother, getting rid of the filibuster to get this done. Because eventually the Democrats are going to get rid of it anyway,’ she added, in reference to how Republicans should handle passing legislation to change voter registration requirements. Earlier this year, Lindsey Graham said lawmakers could consider nuking the filibuster in the future but warned against it in the short term.” (08/04/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6007377-nordone-breaks-lindsey-graham-stance
- Future of Crew Dragon weighs on commercial spaceflight industry
Source: Space News
“While SpaceX says there is a ‘significant’ amount of life left in its fleet of Crew Dragon spacecraft, the company has hedged on how long it will continue flying the spacecraft as it transitions to Starship. The upcoming Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for launch no earlier than Sept. 12, will be the second flight of this Crew Dragon spacecraft, called Grace, the newest of the fleet. Grace made its first flight last summer on the Ax-4 private astronaut mission to the ISS. Crew-13 will be SpaceX’s 18th human spaceflight mission to the ISS …. SpaceX does not plan to build additional Crew Dragon spacecraft beyond the five currently in service. While the spacecraft were originally certified for five missions each, the company has been working with NASA to extend the spacecraft lifetimes to up to 15 missions each.” (08/04/26)
https://spacenews.com/future-of-crew-dragon-weighs-on-commercial-spaceflight-industry/
- US federal judge blocks New York’s ban on ICE gang masking
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“A New York law banning US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [gang members] from wearing face coverings and requiring that they wear visible identification has been put on hold by a federal judge. But a state law prohibiting cooperation between local police departments and ICE has been allowed to stand. The mask ruling comes after federal judges have blocked similar laws in California, Virginia and Pennsylvania that sought to ban federal [gang members] from covering their faces. They are still required to wear agency [gang colors]. … The preliminary ruling means local police officers are blocked from arresting ICE [gang members] for covering their faces in public settings.” (08/04/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/04/judge-blocks-new-york-ban-ice-officers-masks
- World’s third-smallest country changes its name
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“The Pacific Island country of Nauru has changed its name to the Republic of Naoero, its president said, matching the spelling and pronunciation in the national language. The country’s international code will change from NRU to NRO and its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruan. Commonly known abroad by the pronunciation of Now-roo, the new name is spoken as Now-ero. The move would return the remote South Pacific island nation to its traditional name, a statement posted Thursday to the government’s Facebook account said. The country became known internationally as Nauru only because its local name was difficult for foreigners to pronounce and was a matter of convenience rather than one of choice, according to an earlier government statement.” (08/04/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/04/g-s1-137261/nauru-name-change
- DiCaprio, Bezos Lead $200 Million Project to Save 100 of Globe’s Most Threatened Species
Source: US News & World Report
“Foundations funded and co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos have launched an initiative committing $200 million to revive 100 of Earth’s most threatened species, including endangered lemurs, salamanders, pangolins, pigs and echidnas. DiCaprio’s Re:wild and the Bezos Earth Fund are leading the Phoenix Species Project, the groups announced Tuesday. They call it the largest single fund in history dedicated exclusively to recovering critically endangered species.” (08/04/26)
- Spain: Sanchez fends off blistering criticism within EU over Ceuta crisis
Source: SFGate
“Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s migration policies faced fierce criticism as leaders from across the European Union met Tuesday following last week’s rush of migrants to the Spanish territory of Ceuta in North Africa. The sudden arrival of 72,000 migrants on Thursday and Friday sparked a humanitarian crisis in Ceuta and reignited the immigration debate in the 27-nation bloc, though most of the migrants soon went back. More than 80 migrants died, including some who drowned or were trampled in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, according to Spanish and Moroccan authorities. Open letters from 22 EU leaders, and a quick retort from Sanchez, have exposed a roiling debate inside the EU pitting migration hawks against the progressive Spanish leader who has challenged consensus within the bloc on migration as well as NATO spending, Gaza and Israel.” (08/04/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/spanish-prime-minister-sanchez-fends-off-22372846.php
- NJ: AG tries to promote herself to CEO of Amazon
Source: CNBC
“New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced on Tuesday that she’s suing Amazon
on antitrust grounds, alleging the online retailer abuses its power over third-party delivery contractors to suppress competition and harm workers. Amazon prevents delivery workers from unionizing, restricts contractors in its delivery network from hiring each other’s drivers, and limits competition for their labor, leading to lower wages and causing employees to ‘endure harsher working conditions than they should,’ Davenport’s office said in a release.” (08/04/26)https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/04/nj-amazon-antitrust-lawsuit-delivery-contractors.html
- US state regimes sue to block Trump tariffs impacting dozens of countries
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Twenty-five states sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday over a wave of tariffs against dozens of countries. The US says the tariffs, which range between 10% and 12.5%, were imposed due to trading partners – including the UK, China and the European Union – failing to properly tackle forced labour. In a legal document seen by the BBC, the coalition of Democratic states said the decision was ‘arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law’. In response, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the US was ‘using its lawful authority’ to address practices that burden American businesses. Desai added that any foreign countries failing to deal with the importation of goods produced with forced labour was ‘unreasonable’ and ‘must be addressed’.” (08/04/26)
- Sotomayor refuses to pause $655 million judgment against Palestinian Authority over attack claims
Source: Jerusalem Post [Jerusalem]
“US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday declined to pause a $655.5 million judgment against the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization over attacks that killed and wounded Americans in Israel during the Second Intifada. Sotomayor rejected the emergency request without providing an explanation and without sending it to the full court. The decision allows the plaintiffs to continue trying to collect the money while the PA and PLO prepare to ask the Supreme Court to review the judgment. … The case was brought by American victims and relatives of victims of shootings and bombings in and around Jerusalem between 2002 and 2004. The attacks killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more.” (08/04/26)
- Guatemala evacuates villages after Fuego volcano erupts
Source: SFGate
“Residents of two villages have evacuated their homes near Guatemala’s Fuego volcano following an eruption, the country’s disaster management agency says. Video of the eruption shows clouds of gas and ash over the volcano as lava and pyroclastic flows roll down. The eruption began Monday morning and continued throughout the day, leading to the evacuation orders for the villages on the southern side of the mountain., according to Claudinne Ogaldes, executive secretary of the Guatemalan disaster managing agency, CONRED. During a previous eruption of the Fuego volcano in June 2018, hundreds of people were killed and a whole village was destroyed. That episode affected as many as 1.7 million people, according to authorities. The Fuego volcano is one of the most active in Guatemala. Another eruption in June last year spurred preventive evacuations.” (08/04/26)
- Crimea: Russian Soldier Kills Colleague and Three Civilians
Source: US News & World Report
“A Russian soldier in Crimea opened fire on his colleagues, killing one and wounding another, before turning his weapon on civilians and killing three, an official said on Tuesday. Three other people were wounded, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Sevastopol region. He said the attacker had been arrested. There was no information on the motive for the attacks.” (08/04/26)
- Oil prices fall on hopes Strait of Hormuz could reopen
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Oil prices fell to a three-week low on Tuesday as senior US officials raised hopes of a deal with Iran to reopen the key Strait of Hormuz waterway. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent both announced talks had progressed to allow shipments to potentially resume as soon as this week. The cost of a barrel of brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, fell by almost 5% to under $80 on the news of supply disruptions potentially being eased. But the failure of previous negotiations in recent months to de-escalate the conflict between the US and Iran has led to a volatile oil market, with drivers ultimately being hit by higher fuel prices at the pumps. On Tuesday, along with the drop in Brent crude, US West Texas Intermediate prices were down more than 5%, to $76 a barrel.” (08/04/26)
- US regulators grant Boeing 737 MAX 7 certificate after years of delays
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“More than eight years after Boeing organised the maiden flight of the 737 MAX 7, US authorities announced Monday that they certified the aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced certification of the smallest version of the single-aisle MAX plane, a process that had been significantly prolonged by new requirements under federal legislation following two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019. The action, which Boeing and regulators had telegraphed in recent weeks, sent Boeing shares sharply higher. The MAX 7 is Boeing’s first new aircraft to be cleared since the crashes and other problems sent the company into a multi-year slump.” (08/04/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20260804-faa-certifies-boeing-737-max-7-after-years-of-delays
- WA: Man charged with setting Spokane’s largest wildfire went to prison for killing his father
Source: SFGate
“A man who went to prison for killing his father in 2010 has been charged with intentionally setting the largest of the wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of buildings in and around Washington state’s second-largest city and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes. Aaron F. Farinacci, of Spokane, was arrested Monday and booked on suspicion of first-degree arson in connection with the Old Trails Fire, the biggest of the three blazes in and around the eastern Washington city, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said. His bond was set at $1 million and he’s due in court later Tuesday. The fires, which hadn’t been contained at all as of Tuesday morning, have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced about 67,000 people to evacuate. Authorities haven’t said what might have caused the other two blazes.” (08/04/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/authorities-arrest-arson-suspect-in-connection-22372854.php
- Red All Over? It’s Not So Black and White
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg“In the month celebrating 250 years of red, white and blue, Americans were seeing plenty of red — and not just as part of commemorative trifectas or midterm forecast maps.” (08/04/26)
- A Murder Spree Without End
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison“The boat strikes haven’t made a dent in the flow of drugs into this country, nor was there ever any reason to believe that they would. Combating drug trafficking was the official excuse to start the killing, but it was always just an excuse. In the last ten months, the campaign has taken on a life of its own. It makes no difference to the president or Hegseth that the campaign is a failure on its own terms. They are killing these people at least in part to show their contempt for the law and to prove that they won’t be bound by it. They are testing to see how far they can go before they encounter serious opposition. There is no sign that the administration will stop killing civilians at sea unless it is forced to.” (08/04/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/a-murder-spree-without-end
- The Constitution’s Forgotten Economic Tradeoffs
Source: The Daily Economy
by Antón Chamberlin“The Articles of Confederation are often remembered as a failure. But their limits on taxing and commercial power offered greater protection for economic freedom than the Constitution that replaced them.” (08/04/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-constitutions-forgotten-economic-tradeoffs/
- Why the Intelligent Forget the Obvious
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“Economics has a small stock of principles that a first-year student can recite and a Cabinet minister can forget within the hour. Incentives matter; Taxes change behaviour; Prices are signals. These are not obscure theorems. They are closer to proverbs, the kind of thing an intelligent teenager grasps within an afternoon. Yet politicians who could tell you the exact yield on a ten-year gilt will propose a policy that assumes people respond to subsidies but not to taxes, or that a price can be fixed by decree without anyone noticing. The puzzle is not that people are stupid. Despite obvious counter-examples, few politicians are. The puzzle is that intelligence and economic literacy are almost unrelated skills, and the political process actively selects against the second.” (08/04/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/why-the-intelligent-forget-the-obvious
- Trump’s tariffs are his biggest policy failure
Source: The Hill
by Merrill Matthews“After a stinging but widely expected loss at the U.S. Supreme Court, President Trump pressed his enablers to search, once again, for some law he could use to justify imposing new tariff rates on dozens of countries, both friends and foes alike. Yet no Trump policy has been a bigger economic and political failure than his tariffs, alienating other countries, harming U.S. businesses and, most importantly, enraging American voters.” (08/04/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/6006905-us-trade-deficit-tariffs/
- Five Lessons Learned From the Fauci Fiasco
Source: Town Hall
by Stephen Moore“COVID-19 was a traumatic experience for our families, small businesses, schools, and country. Understandably, people don’t like thinking or talking about it. But we must. We now know, thanks to Sen. Rand Paul’s doggedness and Anthony Fauci’s supreme arrogance, which he freely expresses in his diary, that almost every decision made by the medical-industrial complex was exactly the wrong thing to do. Fauci has blown himself up, and almost overnight he has gone from hero to antihero. Politicians and the media didn’t take note of the fact that Fauci had a track record of hysterical and erroneous predictions about viruses before — he was, for example, the public health official peddling the nonsense about heterosexual AIDS. Instead, when Fauci went on TV in front of tens of millions of Americans preaching Armageddon and contradicting everything Trump was saying, he became a saint. No wonder Fauci developed a god complex.” (08/04/26)
- College students aren’t becoming less polarized. They’re becoming less tolerant.
Source: Expression
by Chloe Ratner“The ideological tolerance gap on campus is shrinking, but not because students are becoming more open-minded. Rather, it appears they are becoming less tolerant across the board.” (08/05/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/college-students-arent-becoming-less
- Don’t Believe Todd Blanche About Trump’s Slush Fund From Hell
Source: The Bulwark
by Philip Rotner“The so-called “anti-weaponization fund” established as part of a purported settlement between President Trump and the IRS isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping. Don’t be fooled by the weasel-worded statements that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on the Department of Justice website and tweeted out late Sunday night. They are clearly intended to give a false impression that a stake has finally been driven into the fund’s heart. It hasn’t. Blanche posted two written statements on Sunday night, one that he calls an ‘order’ and one that he calls an ‘update.’ Let’s look at each of them in turn.” (08/04/26)
- Iran’s war … on its homefront
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Ask an Iranian in Tehran these days how the war is going and you might get this response: Which war? The on-again, off-again war on Iran by U.S. President Donald Trump? Or the war inside Iran by a regime whose new fear campaign against its people appears to be backfiring? Since January, when Iran saw the largest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, executions of political dissenters have surged. In late July, the regime escalated its intimidation tactics by holding the first public executions since 2022 – but not before a large crowd tried to stop the construction of gallows in a public square. Videos on social media show security forces in the central city of Isfahan chasing protesters before two young men were hanged.” (08/03/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0803/Iran-s-war-on-its-homefront
- Brexit, Ten Years On
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“In the run-up to the UK’s referendum on EU membership in June 2016, extravagant claims were made by both the Remain and Leave campaigns. Leaving the EU, the so-called Remainers warned, would propel the UK into recession and mass unemployment. Brexiteers, as they were dubbed, countered with promises of enhanced sovereignty, tighter borders, and liberation from Brussels’s stifling bureaucracy. The latter won the Brexit vote (as it came to be known) by 52% to 48%. But just over a decade on from that historic decision—and six and a half years since the UK officially left the bloc—it’s less clear whether they also won the argument.” (08/04/26)
- Fauci’s legacy of lies paved the way for RFK Jr. and his conspiracy theories
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr“Opposite every outrageous pronouncement from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the long shadow of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the formerly canonized COVID-era hero who has already been stripped of his sainthood. The lifelong liberal conspiracy theorist who endorsed President Donald Trump to secure a job in his administration sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash for an explosive interview on Sunday, just a few days after Fauci spent the entirety of a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting pleading the Fifth Amendment. Yin and yang, but both incompetent and ruinous. Fauci’s sins are both too grave to exaggerate and too many to enumerate in full. The ex-NIAID director and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden sought to undermine the lab leak theory of Covid’s origins publicly even as he contemplated it privately.” (08/03/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/08/03/opinion/faucis-legacy-of-lies-paved-the-way-for-rfk-jr/
- Anatomy of Total Failure
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Harvey Risch“What America saw in the Senate hearing of Anthony Fauci on Wednesday is the end state of the toxic paternalism of an incompetent bureaucracy. The numerous discrepancies between Fauci’s diary entries and his public pronouncements over the Covid-19 pandemic were not just self-protection coverup of his earlier disastrous decisions. They reflect the standard model of public health administration: we know better than you how to manage a pandemic, and in fact we know it so well that we refuse to discuss any of it and instead use censorship and smear of contrary expertise and coercion rather than persuasion to effect our policies.” (08/04/26)
- ALL Mainstream Western Institutions View Palestinian Lives As Worthless
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“The BBC recently interviewed an Israeli settler who said that all the Palestinians in four surrounding villages should be exterminated to avenge an Israeli who was killed while terrorizing a Palestinian village last month, adding that just a single Jewish life is worth ten million Palestinian lives. ‘I think now after they kill one Israeli people, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata,’ lawyer Yehuda Shimon told the BBC. ‘It sounds like you’re saying one Jewish life is worth hundreds or thousands of Palestinian lives,’ replied the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in the interview. ‘Million,’ Shimon corrected her. ‘One Jewish life, it’s ten million, okay?’ ‘That just sounds racist,’ Williamson responded, to which Shimon replied, ‘Yes, I know, I know. But this is the truth.'” (08/04/26)
- Why Do Americans Continue to Hew to Statism?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“One of the things that has fascinated me ever since I founded The Future of Freedom Foundation is why so many Americans continue to hew to statism. After all, just look around us. The statist systems that 20th-century Americans brought into existence have brought us a life of constant chaos, crisis, war, conflict, hostility, monetary debauchery, massive taxation, death, suffering, tyranny, and oppression. … Who can possibly be pleased with the results of these deadly and destructive systems? Yet, most Americans continue to hew to them. Why?” (08/04/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/08/04/why-do-americans-continue-to-hew-to-statism/
- A “Trump Account” HSA?
Source: Law & Liberty
by James Hankins“The accounts could show the way to get the government out of healthcare.” (08/04/26)
- War With Iran: A Double-Edged Sword for the US Economy and Agriculture
Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence“The sharp swings in oil prices following the latest round of attacks and negotiations over safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz demonstrate that wars do not always reveal themselves first on the battlefield. Sometimes, their earliest signs appear on gas-station price boards, in transportation bills, and on the balance sheets of farmers standing thousands of miles from the front lines. Now that the confrontation between the United States and Iran has moved beyond pressure and deterrence and turned into direct military conflict, the issue is no longer limited to security calculations. It is about the real costs of war – costs increasingly borne by American farmers, truck drivers, and consumers.” (08/04/26)
- The New McCarthys: 40% of Professors Would Vote Against Hiring a Trump Voter
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“According to a new survey, roughly 40 percent of college faculty would ‘oppose hiring a Trump supporter’. The results of the study are not surprising to many in the field of teaching. Indeed, it may be low given faculty reluctance to admit political bias or the delusion of others that they are without it. Yet, the virtual purging of Republicans from most departments reveals a long-standing ideological exclusion in higher education. While far-left hires are common, even a moderate Republican is a rarity on faculties in a country with a majority of conservative and libertarian voters. Even assuming that many faculty members will not expressly acknowledge their bias, this forty percent is willing to state that they will vote against candidates based on their political views without any consideration of the intellectual content of their scholarship.” (08/04/26)
- Invisible Invaders: How Israeli Surveillance Penetrated American Networks
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño“An unseen battle is being waged across the digital landscape, turning the very devices we rely on into silent observers. Civil liberties organizations have persistently shined light a constellation of Israeli technology enterprises—many birthed by alumni of elite military intelligence units such as Unit 8200, Unit 81, and the Mossad—as pivotal actors in a burgeoning global commercial surveillance market. These firms have supplied powerful tools deployed against journalists, activists, political dissidents, and, in several verified instances, individuals residing within the United States and other Western democracies.” (08/04/26)
- US is the real loser if Senate passes virtue signaling Russia sanctions
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh“Lawmakers will feel good voting for Lindsey Graham’s ‘passion project’ but it won’t end the war and if anything hurts American economic and political interests.” (08/04/26)
- Problems of Causation in Race and Discrimination
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Wanjiru Njoya“Economists who worry about wealth disparities between racial groups are preoccupied with addressing the causes of racial inequality. They all have different theories and explanations about the causes of racial wealth gaps, but the prevailing assumption is that some form of unfairness must be driving it. The key form of unfairness thought to produce disparities in racial outcomes is discrimination. Discrimination may be direct or indirect. According to critical race theories, it includes things like legacies of oppression, systemic racism, and even unconscious bias. The general idea is that government can fix these manifestations of discrimination—by banning or penalizing them—thereby reducing or eliminating the racial attainment gap. Those who assume economic disparities are caused by racial discrimination rely on what Robert Nozick termed ‘normative sociology,’ where any narrative can be used to derive one’s preferred causal explanations.” (08/04/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/problems-causation-race-and-discrimination
- Is the United Nations About to Be Pushed Off a Cliff?
Source: Common Dreams
by Connie Peck“Currently we live in a world bristling with nuclear and conventional weapons, with a potential destructiveness unprecedented in history. A nuclear war, for example, would largely be over in one hour, with each second equivalent in destruction to World War II. Meanwhile, our security is increasingly threatened by skyrocketing global military expenditure at the same time as the United Nation’s capacity to maintain peace is being undermined by member states starving the organization of funds. In the aftermath of two world wars, there was considerable hope that humanity would learn its lesson and that each would be ‘the war to end all wars’.” (08/04/26)
- Trade and Employment
Source: EconLog
by Jon Murphy“A major objection by protectionists is that international trade with other countries, especially low-wage countries, will undermine American workers. As a consequence, there will be a ‘giant sucking sound’ (to use Ross Perot’s phrasing) as jobs are pulled from the United States to these countries. From a purely theoretical perspective, there is little reason to think this will happen. Wages are determined by the marginal productivity of workers. Workers across countries are not identical, which is why firms do not necessarily pursue low wage workers. … Standard theory gives us good reason to doubt protectionist claims. But the protectionists present an alternative theory. We can test the empirical claims of the protectionists to see which theory better explains the empirical evidence.” (08/04/26)
- The American Believability Crisis
Source: The American Conservative
by Jude Russo“Last week, there was a lot of rumbling out of Washington about a massive escalation against Iran. … But the hand of mercy stayed the whip of calamity, or something. Trump on Sunday said the attack was off following interventions from our Gulf allies, who apparently haven’t been too hot on the idea of Iran wiping out their desalination plants and oil infrastructure in retaliatory strikes. … A remarkable cycle! But perhaps not so very remarkable. People have started to notice that the administration has a propensity for extravagant threats followed by equally extravagant walkbacks, often in concert with the weekly operations of the markets.” (08/04/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-american-believability-crisis/
- The Alienation of Marxists
Source: Independent Institute
by Phillip W Magness“Marx’s conception of alienation posits that, under capitalism, workers become alienated from the products of their labor. Instead, the owner of the factory who employs them asserts control over something that was made by another’s hand and sells it for his own profit, depriving their workforce of not only its full economic value but any meaningful stake in how it is sold. Since Marxists view laborers and owners of capital as adversarial parties, alienation also reveals a disparity of economic power through which the latter exerts control over the former and reduces them to subjugation.” (08/03/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/03/the-alienation-of-marxists/
- Mamdani’s city grocery plan could leave taxpayers paying for every banana
Source: Fox News Forum
by Peter St. Onge & EJ Antoni“Thirty-five years after the Soviet Union collapsed, the Communist bread line is poised for a comeback in the Big Apple, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces his government grocery stores will be undercutting real groceries by 30%. Not to worry, socialism will work this time. The announcement came during a press conference on July 27, where Comrade Mamdani promised 30% discounts for ‘essential’ products at his new city-run grocery stores. The problem, of course, is grocery stores are in a razor-thin industry, sporting profit margins of roughly 2%. And that’s with competent management, which New York City government is decidedly not famous for. That means even if the socialists somehow manage to run a grocery as efficiently as Aldi, Walmart or Gristedes, the city will be losing an ungodly amount of money — at least 28 cents on the dollar.” (08/04/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mamdanis-city-grocery-plan-could-leave-taxpayers-paying-every-banana
- Emerging Extremes: Democrats and Republicans Have the Same Problem
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye“Republicans are already treating the DSA as a proxy for the Democratic Party as a whole. Rather than limiting their attacks to the handful of districts where DSA-backed candidates are actually running, Republican campaigns are using those races to argue that the party itself is shifting toward democratic socialism. Whether that message resonates with swing voters remains to be seen, but it is likely to become a recurring theme in competitive House and Senate races this fall. … The same political dynamic cuts both ways. If Republicans intend to portray the Democratic Party through the lens of the DSA, they should expect Democrats to point to Donald Trump and the broader direction of today’s Republican Party.” (08/03/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/emerging-extremes-democrats-and-republicans
- Civic duty? Or vigilantism?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton“There was nothing ‘instinctive’ about Mr. Salinas[s]’ actions. He trained and trained, and he used what he taught himself and applied it. Just as anyone that has a single ounce of civic duty should. Civic duty is far more than going out and informing yourself and voting wisely, well-beyond ‘being a good citizen’ and paying your taxes and driving at the posted speed limit. One key civic duty is to be able, prepared, and above all, willing, to defend yourselves, your family and friends, your community, and even your enemies.” (08/03/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/08/03/civic-duty-or-vigilantism/
- On Larken Rose: The “Economics” the Left “Doesn’t Understand” Gets Dumber Every Day
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson“[I]n fairness to Rose, this logic fail is one he shares with virtually all right-libertarian polemicists. These people will deny that businesses whose profits result from state subsidies, protections, or artificial property rights exemplify ‘real capitalism’ — and then turn around and celebrate as an ‘accomplishment of capitalism’ a product like the iPhone, created by a corporation whose entire profit model depends on intellectual property, government subsidies, and neoliberal foreign policy. … all of the things Rose celebrates came into being because of investments from people with a ‘crap ton of money’ in the same sense that everything people consumed in the USSR came into being because of state-owned industry and Gosplan.” (08/03/26)
- Cato Podcast, 08/04/26
Source: Cato Institute
“Iran: Schrodinger’s War.” (08/04/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/iran-schrodingers-war
- Trump Watch, 08/04/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Trump’s Tar Baby Is Expanding and Strengthening.” (08/04/26)
- Rising, 08/04/26
Source: The Hill
“Trump still pushing J6 slush fund despite Blanche axing it: Niall Stanage” (08/04/26)
- Speech on UAPs at the Organization of American States in Panama
Source: Cobden Centre
“I [Max Rangeley] gave this speech at the Organization of American States in Panama, at the USA House. I talk through this fascinating topic from the perspective of evidence-based policy.” (08/04/26)
- The Good Fight, 08/04/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Daron Acemoglu on Why Liberalism Became a Victim of Its Own Success.” (08/04/26)
- Law & Liberty Podcast, 08/04/26
Source: Law & Liberty
“In their conversation with James Patterson, Professors Lee Strang and Paul Carrese explain why civics education is so sorely needed and discuss the practicalities of building centers for civic education, their reception within public universities, and the impact of AI on the mission.” (08/04/26)
- Advisory Opinions, 08/04/26
Source: The Dispatch
“The Island of Rationality and the First Amendment.” (08/04/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/the-island-of-rationality-and-the-first-amendment/
- Film, Literature and the New World Order, 08/04/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.” (08/04/26)
- NPR Politics Podcast, 08/03/26
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“It’s (still) the economy, stupid.” (08/03/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/03/nx-s1-5918029/its-still-the-economy-stupid